Support Your Local Art Association

Welcome to the Monthly Mentor Blog for May!  I am delighted to be your writer the month following such an informative NAEA Convention in Baltimore.  The atmosphere was “fresh,” over and above spring, flowers, and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor! Participants were given a chance to have input into NAEA’s Strategic Planning for our future as an Association.  Presenters were prepared and positive from general sessions to hands-on workshops.  Smiles, information, and creativity were mixed with “eye candy” at every turn.  The exchanges and renewed friendships exhibited the professional value and fraternity that comes to members of this association.

Because we are “known by the company we keep,” it follows that art educators would want to be a part of professional organizations and associations that help to keep them sharp, informed, and connected to their profession.  After finding the information at my first national convention invaluable, I knew I wanted to return even though I knew not a soul.  I did return, but I also sought out my state convention.  I was a new art educator and was writing my own curriculum.  As the only art educator within my system, I needed help and found it through a regional group of art educators I met at our state conference.

I share this to encourage any of you who are not associated with a local, regional, or state group of art educators to find yours and become active. Click here for links to state associations.  I cannot measure the value these fellow art educators have been to my teaching career.  Yes, they are to a person overloaded; but art educators have a generous spirit. None of us have “spare” time.  So, we must make time for this type of enriching connection and professional development.  Through NAEA and AAEA, I have become a better educator, a better artist, and a better person.  Support your local arts association!

-Rebecca (Becky) Guinn